Nonprofits accounted for 5.2% of U.S. gross domestic product and contributed more than $1.4 trillion to the economy in 2023. Yet leadership capacity depends on more than scale: boards need stronger community relationships, representation remains uneven, and organizations face persistent workforce, funding, and civic-engagement pressures.
Contents
- Nonprofit sector scale and economic role
- Boards and community connection
- Representation in nonprofit leadership
- Workforce and volunteer capacity
- Financial stewardship and revenue pressure
- Advocacy, civic leadership, and trust
Nonprofit sector scale and economic role
The nonprofit sector is a major part of the U.S. economy and labor market. The 2024 Health of the U.S. Nonprofit Sector: Annual Review reports that nonprofit organizations employed 12,766,057 people in 2022. Nonprofit employers represented approximately 10% of private-sector employees, making the charitable sector the third-largest private-sector employer that year.
The sector’s payroll was also substantial. Nonprofits paid more than $870 billion in wages in 2022, while nonprofit wages rose 2.6% from 2021 to 2022. These figures describe the sector’s economic footprint, but they also place a practical responsibility on nonprofit leaders: organizational decisions affect a workforce measured in millions, not only program beneficiaries.
| Measure | Figure | Measurement period |
|---|---|---|
| Share of U.S. GDP | 5.2% | 2023 |
| Contribution to U.S. economy | More than $1.4 trillion | 2023 |
| Nonprofit employment | 12,766,057 people | 2022 |
| Share of private-sector employees | Approximately 10% | 2022 |
| Nonprofit wages | More than $870 billion | 2022 |
The same Independent Sector report combines official economic, workforce, survey, and research-partner measures. Each statistic has its own measurement year, so 2023 economic figures should not be read as a simultaneous measure of 2022 employment or wages.
Boards and community connection
Board leadership is closely tied to whether an organization understands and earns trust in the communities it serves. In the latest Board Leadership Research, 49% of nonprofit chief executives said they lacked the right board members to establish trust with the communities served.
Recruitment priorities reveal a related gap. Only 32% of nonprofit boards placed a high priority on knowledge of the community served when recruiting board members, and 28% placed a high priority on membership within the community served. These measures suggest that community connection is recognized unevenly in board-building practices.
Time allocation is another challenge. Sixty-seven percent of nonprofit executives said their boards spend too little time building relationships that support and inform organizational work. For community leadership, relationship-building is not an optional supplement to governance; it is one of the ways boards gather context, test assumptions, and maintain legitimacy.
Board demographic data also provides an important representation lens. Candid’s People in the U.S. social sector reports that, in data reported through January 2024, White people represented 66% of nonprofit board members, Black or African American people represented 17%, and Hispanic or Latino people represented 8%.
Those figures are voluntary demographic data from public-charity profiles, not a census of all U.S. nonprofits. They are best used to identify patterns and questions for local leadership, rather than as a complete national count.
Representation in nonprofit leadership
The Candid demographic data report covers voluntary data from public-charity profiles collected from July 2019 through January 2024. Its staff and leadership measures show that representation changes substantially between the broader workforce and the chief executive level.
Among nonprofit staff, White people represented 47%, Black or African American people 24%, Hispanic or Latino people 19%, Asian American or Pacific Islander people 6%, Native American people 1%, and multiracial people 4%. Women represented 69% of nonprofit staff.
At the CEO or executive-director level, White people represented 70%, Black or African American people 15%, and Latino people 6%. Women represented 62% of nonprofit leaders. The difference between staff composition and executive composition is a useful leadership-development signal: a sector can have a diverse workforce while senior decision-making remains less representative.
Organization size is also associated with different leadership patterns in the Candid dataset. BIPOC leaders headed 44% of nonprofits with expenses below $50,000, compared with 27% of nonprofits with expenses above $25 million. Women led 46% of nonprofits with expenses above $25 million.
| Candid measure | Figure | Period or population |
|---|---|---|
| Women among nonprofit staff | 69% | July 2019–January 2024 dataset |
| Women among nonprofit leaders | 62% | July 2019–January 2024 dataset |
| White people among CEOs or executive directors | 70% | Same dataset |
| Black or African American people among CEOs or executive directors | 15% | Same dataset |
| BIPOC-led organizations, expenses below $50,000 | 44% | Same dataset |
| BIPOC-led organizations, expenses above $25 million | 27% | Same dataset |
Candid notes that leadership percentages use the populations and organization-size bands stated in the source. They should not be interpreted as a census or as proof that organization size alone causes differences in leadership representation.
Workforce and volunteer capacity
Nonprofit leadership capacity is affected by the economic security of the people doing the work. In 2022, 22% of nonprofit workers were below the ALICE threshold for meeting basic household needs. That included 5% living in households below the official poverty threshold and 17% in ALICE households: above poverty but below the local cost-of-basic-needs threshold.
Volunteer leadership also requires recruitment, scheduling, and supervision. In 2022, 47% of nonprofits said recruiting enough volunteers was a big problem. Thirty-eight percent said finding volunteers available during a traditional workday was a big problem, and 35% said finding volunteers with the necessary skills was difficult.
The management structure behind volunteer programs matters. Among nonprofits that used volunteers, 63% had a paid staff member managing them in 2022. The estimated national value of a volunteer hour was $33.49 in 2023, according to the Independent Sector report. That estimate describes the value assigned to volunteer time nationally; it is not a cash wage paid to volunteers.
Education is one indicator of workforce preparation. Nonprofit workers with a bachelor’s degree represented 31% of the nonprofit workforce in 2022. The figure does not measure leadership quality by itself, but it helps describe the formal educational profile of the workforce available to nonprofit organizations.
Financial stewardship and revenue pressure
Revenue concentration shapes the choices nonprofit boards and executives make. In 2022, individual donations supplied 32% of nonprofit-sector revenue. Program revenue supplied 20%, government funding 19%, and foundation and corporate grants 15%.
The remaining reported sources were dues at 6%, other income at 7%, and investment income at 1%. Together, these figures show a revenue mix in which no single listed source accounts for a majority of sector revenue, while individual giving remains the largest named category.
| Revenue source | Share of nonprofit-sector revenue | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Individual donations | 32% | 2022 |
| Program revenue | 20% | 2022 |
| Government funding | 19% | 2022 |
| Foundation and corporate grants | 15% | 2022 |
| Other income | 7% | 2022 |
| Dues | 6% | 2022 |
| Investment income | 1% | 2022 |
Fundraising conditions added pressure in 2023. The number of nonprofit donors fell 3.4% year over year, while charitable dollars raised fell 2.8% year over year. These are sector-level changes reported by the Independent Sector review; they do not predict the results of any particular organization or local campaign.
Advocacy, civic leadership, and trust
Nonprofit civic leadership takes several forms, and most organizations reported limited formal advocacy activity in 2022. Sixty-nine percent reported neither advocacy nor lobbying. Eighteen percent reported advocacy without lobbying, 10% reported lobbying without advocacy, and 3% reported both advocacy and lobbying.
Thirteen percent of nonprofits reported engaging voters through education, registration, get-out-the-vote work, or ballot initiatives in 2022. Advocacy participation varied by community context: it was 49% among nonprofits located in low-income areas, compared with 29% in non-low-income areas. It was 42% among nonprofits located in communities of people of color, compared with 29% in other communities.
Public trust provides another measure of the environment in which nonprofit leaders work. In 2024, 57% of the U.S. public expressed high trust in nonprofits to do what is right. Trust was lower for specific civic roles: 39% expressed high trust in nonprofits to provide spaces for people from different backgrounds to work together, and 37% expressed high trust in nonprofits to advocate for people historically overlooked by government.
Together, these statistics describe a leadership agenda grounded in community connection. Nonprofit organizations operate at significant economic scale, but effective leadership also depends on representative boards, financially secure workers, reliable volunteer systems, accountable revenue stewardship, and the ability to earn public confidence through civic work.